Challenges, new and old, await Klinsmann, U.S. in World Cup qualifying

During the last cycle, Michael Bradley cut right to the heart of the matter. "World Cup qualifying," he said then, practically in passing, "is pass/fail."

The United States men's national team captain was right, of course. Ultimately, it doesn't much matter if you top the final phase of the CONCACAF region's qualifying mechanism, like the Americans did in 2013, because you might still get dumped into the "Group of Death," like the USA did at the 2014 World Cup.

Mexico, meanwhile, only made it to Brazil through the back door. It scraped into the playoff berth by virtue of a 92nd-minute American goal against Panama in the dying minutes of the last qualifying game. El Tri subsequently beat New Zealand over two games and found itself in a much simpler group at the big tournament than the Yanks got.

Yet the notion that how you qualify is inconsequential is also wrong.

When the whole circuitous process begins anew on Friday – with a straightforward game against Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in St. Louis, followed by a trickier away game in Trinidad and Tobago next Tuesday – the Americans are expected to achieve something more over the course of the meandering, two-year grind than mere qualification. The hope, maybe even the demand, is that they emerge from the other side as a rejuvenated and coherent team, capable of finally doing real damage at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

More than a year ago, head coach Jurgen Klinsmann set the semifinals as a target for that edition, which would make for the eighth consecutive appearance at soccer's summit, should the USA qualify. Reaching the last four would equal the national team's all-time high-water mark, set in 1930 at the first World Cup ever played, when just 13 teams were willing to participate. Since then, the Yanks have never gotten further than the quarterfinals, in 2002.

But lately, Klinsmann's national team has been a shambles, dropping five of its last six matches, crashing out of the Gold Cup prematurely and losing a playoff for a spot at the 2017 Confederations Cup to arch-rivals Mexico. Even more worrying is the fact that the veterans have looked old, the prospects young, the generation in the middle inadequate, and the entire collective disjointed or disinterested – or both.

This new qualifying cycle is not merely a chance for Klinsmann to guide his team to a second World Cup in his tenure, but also to begin turning things around – or at the very least turn a corner. It's a chance for him to show that he actually knows what he's doing. That he isn't merely a man with a shiny vision and no earthly idea of how to make it come to fruition. That the immense salary he has been collecting for more than four years – a multiple of that of his predecessors – wasn't invested in the prestige and promise of his famous name.

But the path he has to navigate – the road to Russia, as it were – winds perilously through the region. CONCACAF, comprising North and Central America as well as the Caribbean, is a forgiving region to qualify from. Three out of the six teams that reach the fifth and final phase of qualifying reach the World Cup directly. The fourth still gets a playoff against the fifth-placed team in Asia for a final berth.

Yet it's also a hard region to qualify from, which is why it's never been simple for the Yanks even though they have grown into local juggernauts. The last time around, they began the third phase – there were just four in that cycle – against Antigua and Barbuda in the streaming rain of Tampa. Then they entered a cauldron of boiling vitriol in Guatemala City. From there, there was oppressive humidity in Kingston, Jamaica; a sodden cricket field in Antigua and Barbuda; scorching heat and frightful intensity in San Pedro Sula, Honduras; a savage snow blizzard outside Denver; the wet, bone-soaking heat and gasping heights of Mexico City; Kingston again, only even hotter and more oppressive; the baking sun and altitude of Salt Lake City; and yet more heat and humidity in San Jose, Costa Rica.

The opposition, meanwhile, is invariably savvy and seldom above gamesmanship, no matter how petty, manipulating regional referees who are often overwhelmed by the occasion. They have been playing the Americans for decades and know just how to fight them – when to take a punch, when to jab and when to throw a haymaker.

There are no easy games. Yet the USA is expected to win, and do so with a fair dose of flair.

In the face of all this, Klinsmann is now followed wherever he goes by a mob of critics that is starting to get loud. As ever, he's his usual zen and sunny self about the whole thing.

"I totally accept it – criticism when there are bad results is part of life," he told the Associated Press on Monday as his national team assembled for a training camp in Miami. "You take those critics positively. You notice them. You discuss with your staff how can we do better so we can get the positive results we were used to for three years."

But Klinsmann, as often, hasn't helped his own cause by calling in a confused squad, for some nebulous reason bereft of former captain Clint Dempsey, who is 32.

"Our younger players have to come out of their shell," Klinsmann said. "We know Clint inside and out. He's always there. But we have to have a big picture toward Russia 2018. We need our young guys to make an impression."

Against this backdrop, the American men start all over again, like Sisyphus pushing his boulder back up the hill.

"We're all excited about starting World Cup qualifying toward Russia 2018," Klinsmann told USSoccer.com last week. "Every time you say the words 'World Cup' it means so much to everyone involved that it gets you pumped up and energetic. The players realize it's going to be a long marathon toward Russia 2018, but we have to start it on the right foot."

"With St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago, they're two nations that are not taken lightly," Klinsmann continued. "They are good teams. T&T proved it in the previous Gold Cup. With St. Vincent and the Grenadines, we have a team that is an unknown. At the end of the day you still don't really know what to expect, so it's going to be very interesting."

Interesting. Yes. It will certainly be that.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.

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